Catlad
by CloakedDragonWing3721
Summary: A new protege of Catwoman, a grumpy bat, a missing strategist/scout and a training exercise. What could possibly go wrong? Apparently, a lot. Oneshot. Some BatCat, but mostly Robin kicking butt.


**A/N:** Marathon got canceled because I was traveling a ton and my computer decided to stop turning on. No idea what happened. Sorry, guys. Dizzydaisy37, this one's for you! I finally did one of your prompts. You proud of me? Oh, wait, one more thing, imagine Catwoman's costume as the one from The Batman, but she has blonde hair.

It was a cold, dark, and stormy (or smoggy, hard to tell) night in Gotham. A small black figure with black cat ears sprinted acrobatically across the Gotham rooftops, parkoring effortlessly. Several much less graceful figures trailed behind, colorful teenagers with green skin and canary-yellow onesies. The teenage heroes (for they were, indeed, heroes) had had a chaperone, Batman, watching after them, but the Dark Knight had gone after a woman dressed similarly to the small black shadow they were chasing.

The race across the rooftops was over before the group of teenagers knew it… literally. They thought they had lost the shadow they were chasing, until Superboy spotted him and they all rushed over… only for it to be a random black shirt on a rooftop clothesline. The team had actually lost the shadow some ways back and had been chasing actual shadows for the past fifteen minutes.

Aqualad shook his head, wondering how the heck he was going to explain this to Batman and where his scout/strategist/general ninja (whose hometown they were in) who normally did this sort of thing was.

 **000000000**

Batman was both disappointed and proud. He wasn't both disappointed and proud at the team, no, they were what he was disappointed about. On the other hand, he was extremely proud of his own protege for neatly outwitting (and outrunning) a team of superhumans and a long-range specialist. The Bats were not the most relied-upon and trusted branch of the Justice League for nothing.

On the other hand, _ouch_. Aqualad had admitted that, thinking back, he had no idea when he had actually lost track of their quarry, but it had been at least twenty minutes between when they stopped chasing and when they had last had a definite sighting of the target.

The team had failed another part of the test that they hadn't even known about, as well.

Batman sighed and told himself that they'd repeat the test until the team won or it had gone on for a week and a half. Though Bruce trusted Selina, he didn't love the thought of his son being anywhere but Wayne Manor.

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 _Trial 2_

Batman got permission from Green Arrow (more like made it clear that Oliver had no choice) to do the training exercise in Star City. The team still had no idea that who they were chasing weren't actually criminals. A notification in his ear went off, and Batman turned to the team on the roof they were standing on.

"An alarm's been triggered at Star City Museum. Let's go." The team nodded and quietly muttered amongst themselves on the way over. _Ugh_. Batman missed Robin already, and it had only been two days. Whose idea was this again?

 **000000000**

Robin, or rather, _Catlad_ , told Batman that he and Catwoman were in position, then had to muffle his snickers as Batman told the team that an alarm had been triggered. _Please_. He wasn't an amateur. Neither he nor Catwoman would trigger an alarm in this virtually unguarded museum if they were covered in bells and had metal shoes.

As the team burst through the doors and Batman through the conveniently open skylight (wouldn't want to damage property for a training mission) Dick allowed a smirk to spread across his face. He was standing next to Catwoman who was conveniently 'red-handed' in the act of removing an extremely old cat painting. Catlad's costume looked just like Catwoman's, formfitting and black with a hood and attaching cat ears, yellow 'cat eye' goggles and a whip loosely tied around his waist completed the look. Unfortunately, no utility belt, but Dick didn't really need it.

After the usual pleasantries, Selina and Dick split with twin mischievous glances. They met up back at Selina's apartment in Gotham, laughing over how Dick had managed to elude the heroes even faster this time and Dick teasing Selina about the make-out session he was sure she had had with his mentor.

 **000000000**

This continued for the next week and a half, Batman getting antsier until he was full-on brooding in his cave over his bird. Sure, they saw each other during the day, but Bruce was very busy and so was Dick and normally they spent most of their father-son bonding time on the rooftops of Gotham. Bruce had seen considerably less of his little bird than he liked, and he was getting increasingly angry at the team for not _catching Catlad already, so Robin could come home_. Robin had been crashing at Selina's apartment as they got back late and Batman even later, so Bruce was beginning to get very irritated by the lack of overenthusiastic acrobats.

Finally, they reached the week-and-a-half mark. Batman called a team meeting and heaved a sigh of relief that it was finally over.

 **000000000**

Dick stood in between Bruce and Selina, in his Catlad costume. Outwardly, he was completely cool and collected, but internally he bounced between being excited to see the team's utterly shocked faces and nervous that the team would be angry at him for tricking them. And he wasn't sure whether he was looking forward to or dreading Bruce's lecture to the team. Excluding him, of course. Robin had performed extremely well. Robin was excited for that reason too, now he could use this against the team whenever they asked if he was too young, too small, or too human to do something. If he could kick the team's butts, he could do anything they could. No more being thought of as the weak link.

Selina's hood and goggles were around her neck, exposing her jade green eyes and silky white-blonde hair that even Black Canary was jealous of. Selina and Dick kept exchanging mischievous looks while they waited for the team, Batman standing next to them like a rock. Robin kept his Catlad hood up, but goggles hanging around his neck. His mask was on, but the slightly oversized hood cast his face into shadow.

Robin much preferred being a bird to being a cat, but c'est la vie. The other option was to do this with Talia (Selina and Talia had fought over it fiercely) but both he and Batman weren't sure Talia would be willing to return Robin afterwards, at least not without a price, so Dick happily went with Selina.

Robin's head whipped around as the Team walked in, clearly ashamed and expecting to be berated by Batman. He saw their eyes grow wide and their defensive stances as they noticed who, exactly was with Batman. Batman and Robin had the same thought at the same time. _Too slow_. In Gotham, against a real opponent, they would be very dead.

"Stand down Team," Batman said. Slowly, the team eased their stances, except Superboy, who looked just a bit angrier than usual. Robin had to try very hard not to laugh. He had been learning to see things from the criminal's perspective, the thrill and all, so he would not be tempted. He had just realized that from a villain's perspective, Batman was terrifying in a horror-inducing way, but next to him the Team looked like newborn kittens. No wonder villains underestimated them so much.

Batman stepped forward. "This was a training exercise that Catwoman agreed to assist with. Your goal was to track and capture the criminals without Robin's help. You failed." Batman's voice was stern and uncompromising. The Team tried to look anywhere but at the senior hero.

Batman continued. "Robin's task was to see what the chase was like from a criminal's perspective." At his subtle nod, Robin pulled down his hood and the Team gasped when they found out the ridiculously elusive pupil of Catwoman they had been chasing was actually their own strategist.

Robin smiled apologetically. "Sorry guys."

Aqualad shook his head. "No, it was a good training exercise, and we do not hold it against you." The team nodded their heads, and Robin smiled at how mature and gracious the Team was being.

Batman cleared his throat and everyone gave him their full attention once more. "There was another objective, however. Robin was acting guilty and by his body language you should have been able to detect that he was acting under duress, and worked accordingly. Unfortunately, it seems as though none of your mentors have given you lessons in reading a person's behavior." The Team nodded agreement. None of them had learned to tell what someone was feeling while in the field.

"Lessons on body language and interrogation will begin Monday, they are mandatory and will be taught by me. Robin will be leading sessions of tracking people through cities and other terrain, along with how to chase down a criminal in a city. Those lessons begin next Thursday." Robin beamed. He hadn't known that he was going to get to teach a lesson. Robin caught Batman's smirk and realized that maybe he had caught onto his insecurities on the team.

Robin was jarred out of his thoughts by Batman announcing that debriefing was over. Before his team bombarded him with questions, he managed to catch a glimpse of Catwoman handing Batman her phone number just before she slipped through the zeta beam.

Robin wasn't sure whether to laugh or throw up.

 **A/N:** Kay, so… yeah. School starts next Monday, I'm doing my summer English project over the next few days, and I'm doing it on The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, one of my fave books of all time, and that's also why I posted a oneshot in the Narnia fandom. Love Edmund. Anyway, sorry for taking so long.


End file.
